SAINT FEAST DAY FOR EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR

  ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN APRIL Saints celebrated on the 29th of April WELCOME! ST GUMBERT OF REIMS, MARTYR Gumbert (Gondebertus, Guntbertus, Gomberdus) was a biological brother of Bishop  St Nivardus of Reims (Rheims). He flourished in the second half of the 7th century under King Childeric II of Austrasia, who is said to have been his brother-in-law. For a while, Gumbert seems to have been one of the first palatines of the empire.  His wife was St Bertha . Both had a great zeal for the exaltation of the kingdom of God both in themselves and in others. A source states that he had a nunnery built in Reims in honour of St Peter (St-Pierre-les-Nonnes). The monastery Avenay (Altivillarense monasterium) near Epernay (Sparnacum), where he found his resting place, was financed by Gumbert and his wife. Here his wife had decided to live in quiet tranquility, while he wanted to likewise leave the world for the silence of a monastery  "at the seaside areas" (maritima loca...

  ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN MAY Saints celebrated on the 1st of May WELCOME! ST BERTHA OF AVENAY, ABBESS AND MARTYR The name Bertha (Berta) is derived from the Old German  bercht, brecht, bert etc., meaning shiny, splendid.  Saint Bertha, a martyr and abbess of Avenay (Aveniacum) in the diocese of Rheims, was descended from a noble family. Married to  St Gumbert (April 29), she obtained her husband's consent to join the monastic life. She then built the aforementioned monastery of Avenay. Following an apparition of the Blessed Virgin, she received many nuns there. Once, when Bertha was silently praying for water for her monastery, St Peter appeared to her and showed her a place where there was a spring, which then began to flow into the monastery in a running stream (ex quo fonte mox rivus egressus secutus est eam ad coenobium remeantem).  Finally, towards the end of the 7th century, she was killed by her stepsons - for what reason is not specified, perhaps in ...

  ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN NOVEMBER   Saints celebrated on the 29th of November WELCOME! BLESSEDS REDEMPTUS AND DENIS, MARTYRS OF SUMATRA Redemptus was born Tomás Rodrigues da Cunha in Paredes de Coura , Portugal on March 15, 1598. A soldier in the Portuguese army in India at first, he later joined the Carmelites in Goa as a lay brother in 1615. His name in religion was Redemptus of the Cross. Denis of the Nativity (Dionysius of the Nativity, born Pierre Berthelot ; December 12, 1600, in Honfleur ) was a Discalced Carmelite friar in Goa. He had previously been a sailor and cartographer in the service of the king of Portugal.  Redemptus was sent by the superiors of the Order to accompany Denis of the Nativity as part of a mission from the Portuguese Empire to the Sultan of Aceh.  In November 1638, upon arrival in Aceh, all the participants in the mission were seized and arrested. They were then subjected to torture, and those who refused to deny their faith were exec...

  ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN NOVEMBER   Saints celebrated on the 29th of November WELCOME! SERVANT OF GOD DOROTHY DAY The third of five children, Dorothy May Day was born in New York to John I. Day and Grace Satterlee Day. John Day was a horse-racing enthusiast, and a sportswriter.  Dorothy Day, a convert to Catholicism at the age of 30, believed in applying Christian principles to help the poor. Peter Maurin, whom she met in the late 1920s, talked to her about voluntary poverty, service to others, and Christian reform. He believed that if each Christian individually performed acts of kindness, Christians could collectively change the social order. Dorothy realized that Maurin's ideas were a bridge to her own commitment to the poor. With his vision and her practicality, Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day established the Catholic Worker movement, which opened ‘houses of hospitality’ for the poor and a string of farming communes in America and other nations.  Beginning in the ...

  ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN NOVEMBER   Saints celebrated on the 29th of November WELCOME! BL. FREDERICK OF RATISBON, RELIGIOUS  Blessed Frederick (Friedrich von Regensburg), a lay brother, was born in Ratisbon (Regensburg), Germany, in or around 1250 and died there on November 29, 1329.  Hieronymus Streittel, prior of the Augustinian monastery in Regensburg from 1515 to 1518, wrote the "Vita Beati Friderici". In it he describes the blessed man's origins, his path to becoming a friar and his healing work as a servant of God. Friedrich worked as a carpenter and gatekeeper. His particular devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and his charity are also documented.  The faithful have been invoking Frederick's intercession throughout the centuries, and Pope Pius X beatified him on May 12, 1909. PRAYER: Grant, we beseech you, almighty God, that the venerable feast of Blessed Frederick may increase our devotion and promote our salvation. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, y...

  ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN NOVEMBER   Saints celebrated on the 29th of November WELCOME! BL. JUTTA OF HEILIGENTHAL, ABBESS Jutta (Julitta) was the first abbess at the Cistercian monastery of Heiligenthal, which was founded in 1234. She was born around 1200 in Franconia, South Germany.  She and a group of like-minded young ladies obtained permission from the bishop of Würzburg to found the Cistercian convent of Heiligenthal near Schwanfeld, Bavaria. Jutta served as its abbess from 1234 onwards until her death around 1250. Jutta was buried under what is now the high altar of the convent church. Soon it became an important place of pilgrimage, with sick people drinking from a bowl that was surrounded by a relic of Jutta's arm, asking for her prayers to Almighty God to be healed of their infirmities. Unfortunately, in 1579, Prince-Bishop Julius Echter of Mespelbrunn dissolved the Heiligenthal monastery and the income was transferred to the newly founded Juliusspital in Würzbu...

  ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN FEBRUARY Saints celebrated on the 3rd of February WELCOME! BL. MARIA HELENA STOLLENWERK, ABBESS Helena Stollenwerk was born on November 28, 1852. Her father Hans Peter Stollenwerk died when she was little, and her mother married again. Maria Helena, who grew up on her parents' farm surrounded by numerous siblings, dreamed to join the missionaries. In 1882 she came in contact with Arnold Janssen , who resided in the Netherlands at the time. He supported her idea of the establishment of a new religious congregation of dedicated women. Meanwhile, she became a housekeeper at Arnold Janssen's "St Michael the Archangel Mission House" in Steyl. In 1884, she was joined by Hendrina Stenmanns. In 1889, Helena became of postulant of a women's congregation established by Arnold Janssen, the Missionary Sisters Servants of the Holy Spirit, and on January 17, 1892 she received the religious name Maria. Six years later she became abbess. The abbess was ...

  ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN MAY Saints celebrated on the 15th of May WELCOME! ST RUPERT OF BINGEN, HERMIT Saint Rupert (Rupertus, Ropertus. Robertus), who lived in the 9th century, was the son of a pagan father, Roboldus (Robolaus), and a pious, Christian mother named Bertha , After the death of her husband, she devoted all her care to the boy, who had been blessed with great gifts, and at the age of seven, when he wanted to learn the sciences, she entrusted some pious and experienced men with his education. With her inherited wealth, his mother built a church and houses for the poor and infirm. Rupert heard a voice saying to him: "You will build yourself a ladder to heaven, where you will be a companion of the angels."  Fifteen years old, he made a pilgrimage to Rome to pray for himself and his mother. Rupert is therefore often depicted as a pilgrim. After his return home, he built several churches, gave up all his belongings and settled on a mountain near Bingen (Rupertsberg...

  ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN NOVEMBER   Saints celebrated on the 28th of November   WELCOME! ST BERTHA OF BINGEN, WIDOW Saint Bertha (Berta), born in the 8th century, was a pious Christian woman. Married to a pagan named Roboldus (Robolaus), she descended from the family of the Dukes of Lorraine and received numerous properties on the Rhine and the Nahe (especially in and around Bingen in Rhineland-Palatinate) as her dowry.  When  Rupert , her son, was only three  years old, his father died in a war against the Christians. Bertha then moved to a place on the Nahe River, built a church there and, despite the many marriage proposals made to her because of her advantages and wealth, she decided to remain a widow for God's sake.  After Rupert had returned from a pilgrimage to Rome, which he undertook as a teenager, he settled on the Rupertsberg (Mount St Rupert); his mother moved into the area as well. Their life story has been told by St Hildegard of Bingen...

  ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JANUARY Saints celebrated on the 13th of January WELCOME! ST MUNGO (ST KENTIGERN) Kentigern (Kentigernus), memorial: January 13 or July 1, the first Bishop of Glasgow (Glascua) in Scotland, is also known as Kentegernus, Kintigernus, Kentegrinus, in Old British Kyndeyrn. Called Mungho or Monghu [Mungo] by the common people, he is one of the most famous saints of the ancient world Church of Northern Britain. This holy man descended from the royal family of the Picts, the oldest inhabitants of Scotland. His mother is said to have been Thames or Thamis [ Theneva ], a daughter of the Pict King Loth. According to Menzel* (Symb. I. 249) , the impending birth of her son - which took place around the year 516 - was announced to her by angels. According to the Bollandists ' biography (provided by Capgravius), St Kentigern's birth took place under wonderful and mysterious circumstances. Butler's * English and German editions, however, do not mention these.  ...

  ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN NOVEMBER Saints celebrated on the 25th of November ST CATHERINE OF ALEXANDRIA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR - FROM THE GOLDEN LEGEND  Excerpts from the 13th century " Golden Legend " by  Bl. Jacopo de Voragine , Archbishop of Genoa, 1275. Originally in Latin, it was the most widely read book (after the Bible) during the late Middle Ages: Here followeth the Life of S. Katherine ( Saint Catherine ) In the year of our Lord two hundred, reigned in Cyprus a noble and prudent king named Costus, which was a noble and seemly man, rich and of good conditions, and had to his wife a queen like to himself in virtuous governance, which lived together prosperously, but after the law of paynims, and worshipped idols. This king, because he loved renomee and would have his name spread through the world, he founded a city in which he edified a temple of his false gods, and named that city after his name Costi, which after, to increase his fame, the people named it Fama Cost...